Welcome message John O. Clarke

John O. Clarke (USA)

Clinical Professor of Medicine
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California, USA

On behalf of the Permanent Scientific Committee of OESO, I am delighted to welcome you to the 16^th OESO World Congress, which will be held in Strasbourg (France).
Founded by the Romans in 12 B.C. on the left bank of the Rhine in the historic Alsace region of France, Strasbourg is a blend of classicism and modernity that will be a perfect location for the OESO proceedings. 

This Congress, themed “Esophagus 2024”, will be the most extensive OESO program to date, bringing specialists from a wide array of disciplines to discuss the most pressing issues affecting the esophagus today.  In the traditional OESO format, plenary sessions will consist of multiple 5-minute answers to focused questions balanced by symposia and hands-on skills sessions covering the widest possible array of scientific offerings in the field of esophagology. 
Aspects of both benign and malignant esophageal disease will be discussed in depth by an international multidisciplinary team of experts representing every relevant subspecialty, including surgery, gastroenterology, otolaryngology, oncology, radiology, pathology, allergy, immunology, pharmacology, physiology, internal medicine and other disciplines. 

If this is your first OESO congress, I welcome you to the OESO family. 
Whatever your level of training or experience, there are numerous opportunities to participate and contribute, and I encourage you to be a vibrant part of this meeting and of those meetings to come. 

To all, I wish you an outstanding 4 days in which questions will be answered, opinions will be debated, and new questions will be raised. 
Thank you for attending!